Our countryside is iconic, inspiring countless books, songs and poems. But things aren't quite as they seem.

Changes to farming techniques over the last 40 years, driven largely by EU policy, have had a devastating impact on nature. Numbers of birds like turtle doves, lapwings and skylarks have declined by over 50 per cent since the 1970s.

These and many more of the UK's most loved species are disappearing at a terrifying rate - and could soon be lost forever without your help.

But now, more and more farmers are asking for our help to help wildlife on their farms.

A donation from you will help us work with farmers to stop wildlife declines and bring the life back to our countryside for future generations.

This year, we want to work with even more farmers and their local communities to create a network of areas across the UK that will become havens for wildlife. We can only do this with your support.

We need more funds to allow more staff to get out in their wellies on farmland across the UK, to share effective and practical ways of making farms more wildlife-friendly. 

For many farmers this will be about encouraging them to enter, and get the very best for wildlife, from agri-environment schemes. We've campaigned for these schemes for many years. There still isn't anywhere near enough funding for them (we're continuing to work on that). But the ones we have can still deliver amazing things for nature - if we can get more farmers to use them and get the very best from them.

With your help and using the advice that we give, farmers will create dazzling flower strips at the edges of fields, bushy hedgerows bursting with birdsong and nesting plots that allow skylarks to soar and lapwings to tumble.

We've identified 24 areas throughout the UK where we believe focusing our advice will make a big difference to reversing the declines.

Recent successes with stone-curlews, corncrakes and cirl buntings have proved it can be done.

This renewed effort to tackle this huge problem will cost £1 million per year. We’ve already secured £150,000 from the EU LIFE+ fund, which leaves us £850,000 short. We can’t do this vital work without your help, so if you can, please donate today.

Donating online is easy and ensures that more of your money is used for conservation.

Donate now

Or you can also donate by:

Telephone: Our Membership Services team can also take donations over the phone. Call 01767 693 680, 9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday

Post: We can accept donations by cheque too. Please make cheques payable to The RSPB and send them to: Together we can save our countryside, The RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL

With your help we need to raise £850,000

This is what a donation from you can help us do: